Chapter 90 – Art of Survival (I)

Chapter 90

Art of Survival (I)

Spending 1,000 points on just a face-masking tech is a hard sell, honestly, even for me. I understand the importance and that it’s likely necessary so we don’t constantly get into fights in the outside world, but art that is just about changing an appearance? And it costing 1,000?

Then again, there’s the fact that it’s somehow ‘mythological’. That nobody in whatever-millions (supposedly) of years has managed to create it. Which means that the world wouldn’t expect it, and that nobody would suspect we were ‘changing faces’.

All the same… I still feel it’s lacking.

I returned to my room in silence and pulled up the creation window. I had just one shot to create something that I normally won’t be able to do for at least a few years. Just one chance to meaningfully impact the most immediate future for everyone involved.

… Hey, isn’t this a lot of freakin’ pressure?! Ah, great, here comes the anxiety. Nope, go back down, you vile little thing. I’m not fifteen anymore, this isn’t the last 3 seconds of the championship game, and I’m not being guarded by Jamal, a six-foot-eight ‘high schooler’. To this day I’m certain they fudged his birth certificate. That dude had a mortgage to pay and six kids to feed, at least.

Maybe… I can bundle it, as it were, alongside something else? Like, all-purpose ‘utility’ art that’s not just about changing faces and growing bones, but also about everything else… utility-wise.

Yeah. Isn’t that actually kind of brilliant? Ho ho, maybe my genius didn’t evaporate at the tender age of 12 like my mother said, which just so happened to coincide with me finally standing up for myself once or twice.

Alright, distant trauma aside, I still have to decide what utilities I want and how to actually order them. Sort of wrap them into separate forms, which would effectively mean having a few separate arts rolled up into one, so I’d be able to give individual pieces when need be, or just bulk it all together into one thick tome and hope for the best.

So, face changing and body mending are both necessary. Maybe even voice altering as well.

Passive ‘calming’ art that would slowly erode whatever demons they may develop in their hearts.

Oh! Also a nice little bump to cultivation speed and art comprehension.

Maybe also a utility to see through the illusions? Whether illusions made by arrays and formations or even those cast quickly through special arts and methods.

Ability to walk on water or maybe even breathe underneath it?

Something like ‘treasure alert’ when in proximity to artifacts? No, no, I don’t need that–I already have Long Tao.

A mini cloaking utility that just slightly strengthens the cultivators’ own ability to hold breath and hide.

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Maybe an ‘alarm’ of sorts that would trigger when asleep if somebody attacks?

Also an ability to detect whether an item is a treasure or not? So, like an analyzer?

Could I also add the ability to spot Demonic Qi? No, wouldn’t that expose Light?